Lucidius Somniator
by KenKosgrove
Summary: Inception is possible. Not how it was described. Dr. Michael Jefferies is missing, and his son Grant is left wondering what all happened. The FBI came to their house one day, and without saying a word, took Grant's father away, along with his journal. Little did they know he had a copy, left specifically for his son, who possesses the same unlikely ability as his father.


The Federal Bureau of Investigation

Classified Seized Documents

Level 5 Security

_Lucidius Somniator_

From the journal of Dr. Michael Lee Jefferies, (Psy.D)

There are two main ideas that Nolan got right when he created 'Inception'. One, that humans can enter dreams, and the second being that we can inject an idea into someone's mind. It leads me to believe that he came into contact with one of us. The things he created incorrectly are exponentially important though. The first is that not everyone can enter dreams; in fact there are very few people on earth who have this ability. The figure being approximately 0.00007%, which if you check your phone's calculator, type in seven billion (approximation of the earth's population at this time) and multiply that out, you get four hundred and ninety people. Of course, most of these people are far and widely spread over the entire earth; many could be dead and gone by now, and so no one knows the exact figure of _"Lucidius Somniator_" (Lucid Dreamer) or "Luci" as they are informally known. The second incongruity is the delicacy of the subconscious. The subconscious whilst asleep is actually extremely stable nearly all of the time; a figure held at 97%.It takes an enormous cataclysmic change to affect the subconscious' ramifications of reality. The truth is that we can switch the setting, the people, the continuity, and even the dimension of time without our subconscious noticing a change. The inconsistent 3% is the unfortunately extremely unstable part of dreaming. Literally anything, at any time, anywhere, _could_ trigger the dreamer to realize he is dreaming. I say could, because it is not a certainty. This either has one of two outcomes; 1, the dreamer will become the owner of the dream, free to do whatever he pleases for the time being. Or 2: the dreamer's consciousness will clash with his subconciousness, and the dream will immediately implode. Obviously, the distance between being "The Owner" and "imploding" is so fractionally bantam that most Luci's exit the dream at this point. This idea leads me to the third inconsistency, and the most important. The regular dreamer (I'll call them Reg Ds henceforth), can hijack/manipulate a dream, accidentally or otherwise. E.G. If the Luci builds an entire dream from scratch, the attention to detail impeccable, and the non-Luci doesn't take to the mapping, he could literally remove it entirely and replace it with his own thoughts. This phenomenon, called _Somnium Restituo_, or dream replacement, happens often for the non-Luci in his own dreams, but is very detrimental to the dream building process for the Luci during implimentation.

The next problem is then to identify where the _Lucidius Somniator_ came from. I have surmised the ability arises from very recessive genetics. The pattern is, at best, inconsistent, and might skip one, three, perhaps 15 generations. For my family, it was 4 generations. My great, great, great grandfather had this same ability, and he recorded it in his extensive "Dream" notebook. Of course, after announcing this fact, the world labeled him a warlock, psychotic, a bringer of evil, and promptly had him put in an asylum. I am a _Lucidius Somniator_, just as he was, and in all due hope, this journal will bring the reader to an understanding.

Now onto the concept of inception. Incepting a dream is as difficult as the movie described, and as bacterial as well. It takes multiples levels of dreams to incept an idea, and has to be self-created. The difference is in the execution. I have done it a dozen times, for my own ideals sake, and I refuse to conduct such behavior again.

As you sink deeper into the dream, less and less of the dreamers consciousness transpires to the area. In a regular Stage 1 dream, much of the world applies. Gravity, time, space, movement, structure; all these things make logical sense. They can be altered, but it still has a true ring of reality to it. You see, consciousness and subconsciousness are very directly related. They may be separate in thought, but they are interconnected in function. The further you go in a dream, the cloudier the conscious becomes. Now hardly anyone can discover they are dreaming in stage 1, unless of course, a Luci tells you that you are dreaming, or that the 3% of random choice takes over. This is the stage that most Lucis thrive and create. It is also the most stable environment to incept an idea, but the least likely to succeed.

A stage 2 dream, or a dream within a dream, is less stable, and the mind clouds this area further. Stage 2 dreams are highly susceptible to change in physics, change in emotion, and the 3% chance of _Somnium Restituo _amplifies to 20%. Still low enough to continue work, but high enough to create disquietude among Lucis. Inception is easier to perform here, and has twice the chance to succeed, but there is always the chance of _Somnium Restituo._

A stage 3 dream, or a dream within a dream within in a dream, is incredibly unstable, and no rules apply here. Stage 3 dreams are "perfectly imperfect". They are a collective clash of simple ideas and extractions made from life with no coherent function. A Reg D will almost never in life naturally reach this stage, which is why it is so uncomfortable for the dreamer. The chance of Somnium Restituo here is a stifling 70%, making it highly dangerous and a highly lucrative for the Luci. Inception has an almost guaranteed chance to succeed here, the only problems being the warped state of reality, and the exit strategy. There are indeed kicks in the dream world, but not correspondent to the films interpretation. Dying is one, and the passage of time is the other. During the average night's sleep for the Reg D, they have about four dreams lasting 40 minutes on average. Delta, beta and theta waves cycle every time a dream ends in preparation of the succeeding dream to come. Unfortunately, unlike 'Inception', time in a dream passes at precisely the same rate as in real life; there is no slowed motion idealism. 40 minutes is 40 minutes. In that time, the Luci must accomplish his goals, and then either kick himself. The main difference between a Luci and Reg D is this: When a dream collapses due to lack of time, the Reg D will be kicked into consciousness, and the Luci will be stuck in the dream forever. (Similar to _Aperi Inanitatem_) I was almost swallowed by a dream, twice now. A dream which runs out of time is quite similar to a nuclear blast from a distance. The world, for no reason, will just begin to disintegrate. In the span of 1 minute the dream will disappear. A white glow will bath the entire dream in light. And then everything will turn to dust. I shot myself at that point. When the light appears, the Luci has 23 seconds until the world will be gone.

A common misconception is limbo. There is no state of dream in which a void of seemingly unlimited time and space occurs. The true "limbo" as you would call it, is actually called _Aperi Inanitatem,_ meaning open emptiness. It is a comatose state, to which the dreamer will most likely never arise from. The conscious is so dissolved at this point that it ceases to exist in the real world. The body then becomes a vessel through which would seem the spirit has departed from, akin to a lobotomy. Lucis digress through the stages of dreams at their own pace, and can go further or back as they wish. The way to bring the dreamer back is to kill them in a specific way; each person has a specific way they rise from a dream. For many, it's falling, for some it's being shot, etc.

Often, as I'm sure you have experienced, a dream can end prematurely. One might think that the moment a dream ends, the entire state would disappear. This is untrue. A dream collapses, as I indicated, one minute after the dreamer awakes. This phenomenon is actually quite apparent to many people; they can remember everything about their dreams the moment they awaken, but cannot seem to remember much minutes later. The dream simply dissolves into nothingness. There may be sections of dreams one can remember, but those have moved into the memory bank, and are not part of the original dream.

The totem; a spinning top, a loaded die, a brass bishop, are absolutely necessary to the Luci. This is the primary indication to me that Chris Nolan had met with a Luci, or had encountered one in his dreams. Each Luci has a totem; the problem comes unannounced with the film. Because everything is in the subconscious, you can change things if you will, which means that totem could fail, even in dreams.

I hope this comprehensive section of my journal has aided you in your understanding the _Lucidius Somniator_. The rest of this journal is a racontage of my time in dreams. If my family no longer has this book, it most likely means that I am dead. Best of Luck.


End file.
